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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.
more bits and i have that who's that wonderful girl that tiktok stuck in my head i love all the ones that's like me when i haven't eaten in like four hours and i'm bitching at my husband and i walk in after a snack and he's like i know those are funny relatable guys tiktok is fun i fucking love tiktok it's really fun sometimes i want to make tiktoks and then i try to the only tiktoks i can do are um the like the little generator things yeah yeah exactly i don't know what else to do i don't either and it's hard because you have to use that like cap cut thing yeah it's i gotta say influencers yeah
content creators on tiktok killing it like i would say when we um talked to tyler about this tyler ghost honey the most most wonderful magical mystical whimsical human ever he is truly weird i told him how i was like i don't know how you how do you live like how do you live having making one tiktok just destroys me for like three months like it's so much work whenever i i feel like this probably happens to you too whenever i make a tiktok tiktok people are like oh my god ash like you posted yeah like wow you exist i'm like yeah i'll do another one in three months yeah don't worry we'll figure
it out see you soon we have lots of ideas and we always say we should do that tiktok yeah we came up with one today but we'll do it eventually i know we should do that one that would be funny but i i don't even think it's like a trend anymore that's all right but like we're always i've never i was gonna say i'm you're like i never i never i am never trending i am never trendy i am never on trend i'm never any of that fun stuff so i love a good trend let's Bring it back.
Let's bring it back.
Oh, hey. I wish you guys could have seen the face and movement that went along with that.
I was doing a little shoulder shimmy.
She locked eyes with me and just did the whole thing.
And I said, I'm so uncomfortable.
My favorite is when they go, hey.
That's on the must plays at the wedding list. There you go.
I like that. Goodbye.
Must plays on the wedding list. Correct.
Correct. well here we are goofy oofy would you say goofy oofy goofy oofy i thought you said good for yoofy good for you goofy oofy good for yoofy that's us all right we should get into i got a chuckle out of mickey mickey thinks we're funny he's working on our headshots we did headshots today yeah cool all right so that's our life hope yours is good too love you love you love you mean it like genuinely all right i have a real bummer of a case for you today oh womp womp i know it's this is a baffling one to me just the reaction of people to murder like the reaction people had to the brutal murder
of a elderly woman oh is wild oh boy yeah we're gonna be talking about bernie teed and the murder of marjorie marjorie nugent i know this one yeah i've known i don't know the details but i know of this one that's exactly where i was before i you know kind of dived in but then i dove in and i was like i gotta get out of here because i gotta get out of y 'all are fucked so let's just go right into it bernie has a hard name to say because his real name is bernhardt bernhardt i always want to pronounce the d like bernhardt hard it's like letterboxd letterboxd there you go yeah but bernie teed was born
on august 2nd 1958 in tyler texas to burn heart teed senior and i believe it's layla may jester oh what an adorable name layla may layla may is a really cool name may i love a first and last name combo that's like that goes together like that you know what i mean yeah i like that now uh burn heart was a music professor which is really cool and layla was a homemaker cute yeah and for the earliest years of bernie's life the family lived in i believe it's kilgore where his father worked as an an instructor in the Fine Arts Department at Kilgore Junior College.
But unfortunately, in 1960, when Bernie was just two years old, his mother was actually killed in a car accident.
Oh, geez. Yeah, really tragic start.
Now, his father waited three more years before remarrying in 1963 to a woman named Clara Wiley.
And after the movie, why did I say movie?
After the wedding, the family moved, that's why, to live in, I believe it's Abilene, Texas.
Right? Abilene? Sounds good to me.
I only say it once, so if you're cringing, you don't have to cringe once.
So starting at an early age, Bernie took on the role of caretaker in the family, like especially after his mom passed away.
And then when his father died in 1973, after battling a long illness, Bernie immediately volunteered to get a part -time job to help support his sister and his stepmother.
His sister said in a 1998 interview with Texas Monthly Magazine, I really think that because of the loneliness he went through in his childhood, Bernie made it his calling to serve people in times of their own need oh so it's it's really interesting the the path that you take throughout this case because you it's i'm like where did you veer off course yeah that i think that's again i don't know the details of this but i remember that this case was one that was like very confusing because it's like what happened yeah it's like he just just snapped.
Yeah. Really. Now, but before that happened, that desire to take care of other people led Bernie to a part -time job at a local funeral home where at just 15 years old, he spent his afternoons doing yard work and then down the line, he eventually started helping with the funerals.
Okay. Now in 1973 East Texas, where gender roles and heteronormativity were kind of expected, Bernie was something of an anomaly.
He was a presence that unintentionally but directly defied those social expectations but on the other hand he was so charming and nice that everybody couldn't help but like him.
So there were things about his personality that you know where he lived people wouldn't usually be cool with but just because of who he was they they were cool with it.
Isn't that funny that it's like huh yeah so you didn't like these things these completely just innocuous things that you decided aren't aren't right.
Yeah or or socially okay but because he's such a nice person couldn't help but just ignore them and it's like huh it's almost like you should look at who people are imagine that no never let's not do that no let's let's base it off of something totally ridiculous oh yeah and that's not to say that there weren't people out there that just completely didn't accept him because he would get bullied from time to time for having a quote -unquote effeminate personality but overall he was really popular with his classmates there were of course the group of assholes that bullied him but for the most part
he had a loving squad well that's good yeah and i'm glad he had that when he was when he was like a decent person exactly see it's so confusing it's just it's such a tough case yeah but his sister said he was popular at high school and for kicks he'd sneak the hearse on fridays out of the funeral home and drive a bunch of us around abilene sorry i said it again that sounds fun yeah i would have I thought that was great.
You would have been the one whipping the hearse around.
You'd be like, okay.
Okay. But Bernie's warm, friendly personality, it did make him an ideal fit for the funeral industry.
You need somebody like that when you're dealing with grief and everything that comes along with it.
Yeah. And after graduating from high school, he enrolled at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he eventually got an associate degree in mortuary science, which is pretty cool.
That is pretty cool.
Reminded me of you.
Thank you. You're welcome.
welcome mortuary science reminds me I don't have that degree but thank you oh you don't no oh I thought you did no that's a whole different one of the ones that you don't like mortuary stuff is a whole different very uh involved degree oh shout out to my morticians out there hey yo hell yeah let's go but after graduating Bernie found work at a local funeral parlor where he spent years and years learning the trade and then he moved to Carthage Texas and there he found work at hawthorne funeral home and he was able to get an apartment just behind the funeral home so he lived close by that's a nice
commute it's a great commute and he was close with the funeral the owner of the funeral home for a little while don lipset said he was probably the most qualified young man i've ever seen he waited well on families he would sing solos behind the screen during the funeral and he was a darned good embalmer he had a talent of making the hair of of the deceased look really natural man yeah loaded statement i was just gonna say so much to unpack in that statement it's just like he was a damn good embalmer which it's like you know what you'd hope necessary yeah the whole point is to look great absolutely you
know like to look nice and serene and peaceful and you know and look like what your family members remember you looking like so like you know it's it's a skill that someone has to have hell yeah and he was also Also a good singer and good at dealing with the families, you know?
Yeah. Good for you.
I always thought about that.
When we did autopsies, I was like, the embalmers?
Shout out to them. Yeah.
Because a lot of times I was like, oh, like, your work cut out for you here.
I would imagine that would be difficult, especially, you know, depending on how you leave this world.
Exactly. So, so again, shout out to morticians.
Hello. But Bernie, he didn't just excel at work.
He gained quickly, he quickly gained a reputation around town as a helpful, cheerful man to just about everybody.
Carthage resident Paulicarta said, he was very quick to shake your hand and ask how you were doing.
And if you told him you weren't doing too well, he would drop everything to talk to you and see what he could do.
And when he wasn't sewing curtains for his elderly neighbors or helping them with their taxes, he was showering them with gifts and mementos.
Damn. yeah according to that uh funeral owner there don lipsy he said the ups truck started arriving in carthage every day with something that bernie had ordered from a catalog but like for other people wow yeah and you're like what the fuck is going on bernie it's so strange when's it gonna happen i'll let you know but whether it was at the funeral home in church or literally just on the street bernie seemed to add something to the community that everybody recognized as valuable people but at the same time his gentle disposition his love of broadway show tunes and his noticeably single relationship
status did make him the subject of some small town gossip which is stupid because you're like here's this awesome person and we're all just gonna like quietly talk shit about him because he's single and like like show tunes i know like people get a life people need to mind their own fucking business to be honest like it's like just let them like show to again again who I I don't know exactly what happens after this so I'm sure I'll change my tune later but like right now I'm like if somebody's being chill let's just let them like what they like that's the thing you know you like show tunes you
like show tunes get out of here tunes I don't like show tunes but I hope if you like show tunes you have the best time singing them just like you know life's too short everybody just live stop worrying about what other people are liking it's my favorite fucking way of my favorite motto my favorite way of life live and let live exactly If no one's hurting someone.
Of course. Of course.
If you're being a dick.
Don't let that happen.
And you're in trouble.
But Don Lipsy said he wasn't bad looking, and there were numerous girls in the community who would have dated him, but he showed no romantic interest in women his age at all.
I think some of the men during their coffee shop talks would insinuate that Bernie was a little light in the loafers.
Light in the loafers?
Yeah, it's a very rudely insulting way to say that somebody is gay.
Wow, I've never heard that.
Nor had I. I had to look it up.
Strangely. i was like light in the loafers and then i forgot that google existed so i was sitting there for like 10 minutes like lighten the loafers and then you're like oh it's 2023 i can google i can google and it's that's also you're like i don't really this is not a fun thing to have on my google search history but yeah let's go i didn't want like my cookies to be a part of that but no definitely not i don't know what those are but none of us do nobody knows what cookies are even if you say that you know what cookies are you don't know and you have to accept them everywhere where you go now.
And we all just do.
Yeah, but sometimes I say no. Me too.
And nothing happens.
Sometimes I get strong and I say no. Yeah, me too.
But other times I say, accept all.
Accept all. Yeah, it honestly just depends how I'm feeling that day.
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but yeah so basically people at this point people really like bernie but there he is the subject of small town gossip of people insinuating that he's gay because he doesn't have a partner and he likes show tunes which like and it's that time and it's all yes and i don't really you know whatever so either way whatever whatever either way whoever he was bernie did seem to have a way with older at least as far as things at the funeral home were concerned.
According to Skip Hollinsworth, some of the older women in town loved him so much that they told their children Bernie had to sing at their funeral when they passed on.
Wow. I know, they were like, listen, I'm putting it in my will.
It's canon. He's literally like Kirk from Gilmore Girls, befriending all the old ladies.
He is! And getting their rings at the end.
Yeah, for now. For now.
But it was that strong empathy and compassion passion that drew a newly widowed Marjorie Nugent to Bernie and their meeting set in motion unfortunately a chain of events that would forever change the lives of many people in Carthage Texas this was also like it was also cheerful and jaunty a lot of it was cheerful and jaunty and I don't I'm now now we're going down it's like going up the the hill of the roller coaster and you're about to take that dive see that's actually my favorite part hey no not here entirely so that's to where I am right now.
Yeah. On the hypothetical, no, not hypothetical, metaphorical rollercoaster.
I don't like it there, but on like the legit rollercoaster, I love that part.
Oh, there you go. It's a little bit about us.
Here we are. So let's talk about Marjorie.
Let's talk about her.
Marjorie, her maiden name was Midyette and she had been born in a small town just outside of Carthage in 1915 and she met her future husband, Rod Nugent, while they were both attending Louisiana Tech. After graduation, they got married.
Rod took a job with Magnolia Oil, and his job required them to move around, like, all over the place.
They'd spend time in Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, you name it.
But their longest stay was in Midland, Texas.
They spent over 12 years there, and mostly raised their son, Rod Jr., there.
Okay. Then in 1989, they moved to Carthage, and at that point, Rod Sr. was seriously considering retirement and just wanted to settle down close to Marjorie's hometown.
Marjorie might not have been born in Carthage, but it was clear that the Nugents were the antithesis of other recent transplants like Bernie, who quickly and easily integrated themselves into the community.
Okay. That wasn't quite the case for the Nugents.
Oh. After buying and controlling interest in the First National Bank of Carthage, the couple, quote, built a sprawling 6 ,000 square foot stone home at the edge of town surrounded by a stone wall and electronic gates.
Damn. Goals! Holy shit.
I want electronic gates.
Electronic gates. I'm going to put that on my vision board. Damn.
So the high stone walls and the electronic gates surrounding the Nugent house certainly didn't endear them to the locals.
No. And it was said that neither did Marjorie's attitude.
I will warn you ahead of time that a lot of people didn't have nice things to say about her, which is really shitty reporting on the case, because I would have loved to find something that I, you know, could report on.
That doesn't sound like biased or anything or like something that's...
Yeah, just, you know, like talking crappily about somebody.
And maybe there's something in here, but a lot of people were kind of nasty to her.
But I would like to say that I bet there was a few things about Marjorie's personality that were great.
Of course. That's the thing.
And that's why it sucks when you only hear the bad stuff.
Yeah. Because it's like you don't want to only hear the good stuff and you don't want to only hear the bad stuff.
Like everyone's a rounded out person.
That's the thing. You know?
That's the thing. And I think this was also later in her life.
She'd also eventually will find out that she's going to lose her husband.
So she's not in like the best time of her life.
No. If I was older and lost my husband, I don't think I'd be the most friendly human on the planet either.
I'd be fucking miserable.
i would be i can't give her like i'd be a a horrible person to be around so same you know what marjorie i feel you girl i do too so i'm sure you're great in your personal life absolutely and rod thought so so yeah let's go so there you go so that aside you know the house didn't really endear them to people because it was it was intimidating yeah intimidating exactly that's the perfect word for it and it it kind of said like we don't really want anything to do with you like that's what these electronic gates are all about so like leave us alone meanwhile that's just i'm like i'm like game see game
oh i'm like yeah those i would actually have a sign on them that said leave me alone like i'd i'd see that and be like hell yeah fellow people hater like you just go up to their security camera and do like a rock on side like hell yeah we will never speak they're like yeah i'm a game see game i'm totally kidding everybody don't worry I mean, you know.
So, the thing was Marjorie didn't leave the house very often to go into town.
And whenever she did, people said she had a way of rubbing people the wrong way.
One resident said if she had held her nose any higher, she would have drowned in a rainstorm.
Oof. It's like, okay, God forbid anybody be confident.
And you're like, well, that was a funny way of saying that.
That was a read. Pretty mean.
Exactly. And also, you get to that point in life, you should be able to hold your head high.
why i mean i hope at that age i have my nose so high that i'll drown in a room i don't have any problem with people's confidence you know i don't walk around feeling how you want to feel you shouldn't the problem comes when you look down on people yeah that's where the problem comes you want to hold your head up high hold that head up high girl yeah hold that head up high i hope everybody feels that way sometime in their life exactly don't look down on people while you're doing it exactly and what people didn't know was that one of her relatives confirmed that she She struggled with a kind of quote -unquote
low -level depression.
So she was struggling internally.
And it's like nobody took the time to realize that or empathize with that at all.
That's the other thing.
I know we're throwing a lot of life lessons in here, but I'm feeling it in this case.
Yeah, you know? Because it's layered.
But it's like that's the other thing.
You don't know what somebody's going through in their private life or their insides.
You know what I mean?
That's why don't just read people right away.
Give people the time of day.
Yeah, that's the thing.
but those those low levels that she would hit they were said to make her unpleasant and irritable and this relative said it was like these blue periods came on and when they did she could be very biting in her comments to people Margie was a difficult woman to love but I also think it's important to point out that this was a bit of a different time where people didn't really have the understanding of mental health that they do now so I do wonder had this happened more recently if Marjorie would have had the same reputation Because she sounds like she was just struggling a bit.
Exactly. You know. But in retrospect, most people were able to realize that Marjorie wasn't exactly as unpleasant as she was guarded and uninterested in going out of her way to make friends.
But if Bernie Teed's warm welcome into Carthage tells us anything, it's that in small -town Texas, friendliness and good -natured warmth can go a long way when it comes to integrating yourself into a community.
and conversely being a little closed off and guarded can have the opposite effect and that caused marjorie to become something of an outcast in her hometown okay which sucks yeah that really sucks it does so her status became starkly apparent when her husband died unexpectedly from heart failure in the 90s uh in 1990 quote only a handful of people came to the funeral to offer her their condolences which like that's shit that's really shitty that's shitty i don't know but i don't know about these people i don't either i feel like even like because you're talking about the people who are like shitty
to bernie because even though he's a good person they're just mad that he likes show tunes and then these same people were like she's kind of shitty to her it's like i don't know yeah seems like the calls coming from inside the house town sure does but you know who did go and offer their support was bernie ah he was not only a comfort in his capacity as assistant funeral director but also as a friend according to one resident larry Brumley, I believe, quote, the Nugents, including Mr. Nugent, knew Bernie's parents and their association goes back many years.
They knew him as a child.
Wow. Over the years, they've maintained their connection and had an interest in him and helped him.
So both of them did.
Yeah. Now, while the majority of Carthage residents did their neighborly duty of politely passing on condolences after the funeral on the rare occasions that they did see Marjorie in town, Bernie was really the the one among the residents who took a genuine interest in Marjorie.
District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson would later say, I don't know if Miss Nugent had a single friend in the town other than him.
Oh, which is heartbreaking.
That's really sad. And according to Skip Hollinsworth, Bernie, quote, would later tell others that he could see the loneliness etched in Miss Nugent's stern face as she stood by the casket.
Oh, my God. It's like she was internally going through a lot.
Oh. and it's sad because he he is good to her for a while like for a little bit and like sees this but it's weird because like he is good to her for a little bit but then it it really quickly veers off course yeah this is just such a strange one it really there's no warning signs it feels like like I'm not seeing anything here that's like oh okay eventually do we get some eventually in my opinion sure okay okay i think like somewhat because so far i'm like this just seems like oh whatever like just two sad you know souls that are misunderstood exactly that's exactly what it is but that's the thing
so he saw her you know as this lonely woman and it kind of activated his caretaker personality and drew them to each other okay so in the months following rod's death bernie started carving out larger and larger chunks of his time to check in on the newly widowed marjorie okay and by then she was living alone in that sprawling mansion that they had built just a couple years earlier wow and bernie would visit the house for lunch he would take marjorie to see plays and musical performances at the nearby college and he would leave notes of endearment around the house for her to find after he had
god and marjorie stark the stock broker lloyd tiller said bernie made her smile he gave her plenty of attention and he was an an excellent conversationalist, it was like he made her feel young again.
Damn. So it was like.
Seems lovely. It kind of like revitalized her spirit a little bit.
Yeah. And before long, Bernie and Marjorie seemed inseparable.
However, despite what the local gossip said, their relationship was purely platonic and never remotely romantic.
But Marjorie quickly grew possessive of Bernie, they thought.
And she started repaying his acts of kindness with her her own demonstrations of affection typically in the form of expensive gifts like a twelve thousand dollar rolex that she bought him damn a roly roly roly damn wench so for a woman with a reputation of being cheap and curmudgeonly margie and bernie's relationship baffled a lot of the town's residents who just clearly have a lot of time to gossip yeah and bernie's friend larry brumley told the reporters she depended on him a lot she would cling to him and people looking on could see that Margaery was becoming very possessive of Bernie.
And even though I just said that their relationship was never anything but platonic, that didn't stop some other residents from speculating and spreading rumors that Margaery and Bernie were not just friends.
Most of the rumors actually seem to come from the other widows in town, because they were jealous that Bernie had been spending less time with them as he and Margaery grew closer.
Yeah. Which is interesting.
Yeah, that is. But eventually, innocent acts like Bernie napping at Margaery's house or the two sharing a cabin on a cruise were being interpreted as evidence of a romantic relationship or something unsavory.
Of course. So you can see where people got their ideas from.
Yeah, people love some gossip.
Oh, they sure do. But one of Marjorie's relatives said of the relationship, quote, I think Margie truly enjoyed the companionship with Bernie and I think Bernie truly enjoyed Margie's money.
So there you go. Black and white right there.
There you go. That's where you start to see, like, maybe that was a little bit of a warning sign that he really liked her money.
Marjorie's family...
I could see that for sure.
Red flag, red flag, red flag.
That's a red flag. And Marjorie's family's feelings about Bernie may not have been entirely misplaced.
In the early 90s, Bernie was earning an annual salary of $18 ,000 per year as an assistant funeral director.
sector that was barely enough to cover even the essentials much less the excessive spending on gifts for friends and neighbors that he quite frequently engaged in bernie's sister told writer skip hollinsworth bernie was a buyaholic he not only wanted to experience the finer things in life he loved buying as much as he could for others he'd order the same items over and over like three of the same chairs or boxes of cross pens just so he could give them away wow now the So overspending constantly put him behind on his bills, and to make matters worse, he owed the IRS around $4 ,000 in back taxes.
And under the circumstances, Bernie's acceptance of the lavish gifts and large sums of money from Marjorie makes sense, but that doesn't mean that his friends and family necessarily approved of the arrangement between the two of them.
At the end of 1993, Bernie told his boss, Don, that Marjorie had actually offered to hire him as her business manager and, quote, escort her on trips around the world for a much higher salary than he was making at the time.
Now, the owner of the funeral home, Don Lipsy, was stunned by the news, and he warned Bernie he was a little concerned.
He said, you know what kind of woman Miss Nugent is.
Whatever you think you're going to get out of her, you're going to have to earn every penny of it.
Damn. And Dawn's wife Sally agreed, saying, Mrs. Nugent is already so possessive of you.
She's already making you drive out there every morning just to fix her coffee.
Is that really what you want for yourself?
Hmm. You know, I don't know if it was the coffee making that he wanted for himself.
I don't know. I think it was like, I'm going to travel the world and get paid handsomely.
Who the fuck really would say no to that?
Exactly. That's the thing.
Now, this wasn't the first time somebody had warned Bernie about the rumors going around town about his relationship with Marjorie.
In fact, about a year earlier, Don Lipsy had expressed to Bernie that he was concerned the relationship could affect his business at the funeral home.
Oh. He said, quote, they did a lot of things together.
People probably assumed it was romantic.
I told him, Bernie, you can't be funeral director here and do that.
This is a small town.
So everybody was also falling victim of like the small town of it all here.
That's the thing. Yeah.
Very much the small town of it all.
But about a month after that conversation, Marjorie ended up offering Bernie that job as her business manager.
And he did end up quitting his job at Hawthorne Funeral Home to become Marjorie's full time companion.
Oh, boy. And quote unquote business manager.
I was like, his degree is in mortuary science.
Does he have a business degree?
I don't know. No. I don't know about that.
No. I just don't know.
As Marjorie's new business manager, Bernie had access to a lifestyle that had always been very far out of his reach, but very much desired.
So with money borrowed from Marjorie, he bought a small house about a mile from her estate.
And he would throw lavish parties to show off this upgrade of his in social status.
His sister said, Bernie found himself living a dream.
For the first time in his life, he got to be somebody.
All right. Yeah. So everybody's getting something out of this, I suppose.
For a little bit and rightfully so in the beginning.
I was going to say right now it's like, okay, it's working for everybody, I guess.
You are performing a service, you are being paid for it, that's wonderful.
I'm not here to say anything.
But shit gets not okay.
Wiley. Because he wasted no time acclimating to his new role and access to wealth, which several people in the Nugent inner circle found suspicious, which personally I know if some random man started showing up and hanging out with my grandmother.
Yeah. Yeah. I would be a little sus about that.
That's where it becomes an issue, I think.
Because remember, she has like a child.
She has a son. Yeah, I would have some issues with that.
Yeah. I'd be like, what's the deal here?
What's the end game?
And if somebody that was not a family member had access to my grandmother's bank account, like Bernie had access to Marjorie's bank account, and also had check signing privileges.
Yeah. I would not feel good about that.
I would not be happy about that.
No, but he did have all those privileges.
And when Marjorie's stockbroker questioned whether, you know, he could be trusted to have access to so much money, I guess Marjorie exploded and told Tiller, the stockbroker, she could absolutely trust Bernie and that if he had a problem with that, she would move her stocks elsewhere.
Whoa. So she was like, how dare you insinuate that I can't trust him.
Damn. Which makes you even sadder when you find out that she went to, she stood up for him like that.
Yeah, I was just going to say, because like Jesus, like he really must have brainwashed her.
Yeah. So similarly, when Marjorie changed her will in late 1993 to make Bernie the sole beneficiary of her entire estate, family members had questions.
Yeah. When one of her family members asked her why she would cut her only child out of her will, Marjorie said, quote, she didn't want to leave a cent to her son or her immediate family because they didn't appreciate her.
Whoa. and appreciate was quote unquote but can you imagine your mom cutting you out of her will because she says you don't appreciate her fuck shoot that would be a devastating blow that would be not well bitch not for the like material reason but just for like the damn like that is yeah that's sending a message someone taking you out of their will like not the monetary part of it just the act and the message exactly that is that's big because that is your last like Like that is you shuffling off this mortal coil and saying fuck you to the person you took out of your will.
Birds in the motherfucking air.
That's upsetting. Behold my field of fucks.
It is barren forever.
And then to leave it to like another young man who's probably similar in age to you that you may have known because again, the Nugent's knew Bernie when he was a child.
That would fuck me up.
Yeah. So yeah. In addition to Bernie's considerable salary, he also accompanied Marjorie on trips around the world to places like Egypt, Russia.
They took various cruises all over the place together.
And soon enough, it seemed that the access to Marjorie's fortune was too much of a temptation for Bernie.
Oh, no. And this is where we go completely off course.
he started regularly withdrawing small quote -unquote small to medium amounts of money from marjorie's account and handing it out around town to people who most needed it so you're like he's like a weird like robin hood but like yeah but like with stolen money i was just gonna say it with money that like like it's not like this lady has done anything terrible and like no like it's not like she like you know like kills kids or something yeah like there's really nobody to rob her money and give them away give it away she doesn't deserve it but it's like yeah like no you can't do that you sure can't
but it's like you i don't know if in his mind he's thinking or convincing himself that he's like robin hooding i think and it's like that's not how that works most definitely i think so oh bernie i think he thought he was some and this is just my opinion it's just my opinion he thought he was doing good here i think there's some missing pieces here bernie and i'm sure in the again this is just my opinion i'm sure it was one of those scenarios where it's like well she's rich as fuck so she's not gonna miss it yeah she's not spending it so i might as well give it to people who need it yeah but it's
like that's almost like for lack of a better term like playing god yeah well it's just like that's not yours That's not your role to divvy up.
Yeah, exactly. But he sure did.
With money stolen from Marjorie's account, Bernie, quote, bought at least 10 cars for people who couldn't afford one, a home.
Holy shit. A home for a struggling young couple, scholarships to students at Panola College, and he pledged $100 ,000 to the New Building Campaign at First United Methodist Church. damn i'm i'm just like so i'm like you're you have like this one part of that is is good question mark like it's there yeah the idea yeah it's the methodology correct that i have a problem with but like you're like Like, yeah, that's awesome.
Like, cool of you. That's so nice.
Like, that feels great.
But, like, invest your own money and watch it grow.
Or talk to her. Or say, yeah, like, you know, like, this is just, like, a really great thing that you would be able to do.
And since I can see, you know, what's happening in your financial life here.
Yeah. If you felt so inclined, it might be nice to help some people out.
you know get some of those good good feelings going like just start talking to her about it and be like i could help you like we could do the small and like if you wanted to do this you can't you can't take it with you when you leave so like you might as well can't take it with you it's a tax write -off that would have been the like ideal thing to if you have this notion bernie then just talk to her about it at least at the very least and at that point just be like okay if you're not willing to do it before you you know depart this earth maybe put it in your will that like Like, you like to do
some good with your money and stuff.
Or just fucking wait it out, my guy.
She left her entire fucking estate to you.
Yeah, then you can do whatever you want with it.
That's the thing. You can help everybody out like apparently you want to.
That's what's so strange about this.
I'm like, it sounds like you want to help people, but you're not doing it in a good way.
There's really no doubt about the fact that he wanted to help people.
Like I said, so many other ways to go about this.
In this case, it's just so bizarre.
Very strange. Yeah.
I don't know how to feel.
I'm feeling stressed.
You'll know how to feel when we get to the end of it.
That's good. This ends very brutally and very, very...
I mean, murder is always uncalled for, and this specific one is just like, wow.
So with Bernie as her business manager, Marjorie assumed that she didn't need to monitor her accounts.
That's what she hired him to do.
And the thing was, though, if she had been monitoring those accounts, she would have realized that Bernie had kind of become the community's one -man social safety net.
Yeah, it sounds like it.
And developer using her money to help residents go to college, open small businesses, stay afloat until their next paycheck, you fucking name it.
All the good things that you could do with money that is yours.
Mm -hmm. But while she did place absolute trust in Bernie, the real reason for her ignorance of Bernie's, I guess you could say, well -intentioned thefts, was likely due to the onset of dementia, which was first noticed by Bernie in 1995.
Oh. So that makes it even more fucked up, in my opinion.
Yes, it absolutely does.
Now, just a year after going to work for his friend, Bernie started to feel like Marjorie had become more controlling of everything around her and far less willing to tolerate any inconvenience or disappointment, which is a symptom of a certain kind of dementia.
100%. Like, we've all seen the commercials or unfortunately have had to deal with it.
People that we love.
People can change when they're going through that.
Now, in a conversation with his own sister, Bernie said Marjorie had fired the gardeners, quote, because the flowers hadn't bloomed in time and became vigilant and almost paranoid about the armadillos that occasionally made their way into the yard. And his sister actually remembered this conversation and said, I asked him why he didn't quit.
And he gave me this tortured look and said, because I'm her only friend.
I have to stay. I'm the only one she has.
which is interesting because you're actively stealing from an elderly woman with woman with dementia but you also maybe care about being the only friend that she has and it's like do you care about being the only friend she has or do you care about the good feeling that you get when you donate her money to others that's the thing it feels like he's positioned himself as the only friend she has uh -huh which is a powerful thing in someone's life to have that much you know authority over everything with her and also you've positioned yourself as her only confidant which i mean like obviously that is she's
been lonely a lot in her life that it feels like you're taking advantage yeah this feels like a vulnerable situation a vulnerable woman and you've positioned yourself as someone she can trust and that you'll be here for and then you're going around being like i'm the only one she has it's like i don't know my god that seems like you put yourself in that position that's the thing that takes away any of the you know that takes away any of like the good deed points you would have gotten at any point during this and it's like great you're doing good deeds like fantastic but i do think there's something
to be said about people that do good deeds because they genuinely want to yeah make people you know feel good or get people out of a tough situation or people that do something good because of the feeling that it gives them well and that's and it's usually like a lot of people do these things silently yeah and they don't tell anyone and they just do it because they wanted to do it and that's it and it's like and it's always seems to be a thing where if you don't shout it from the rooftops you're not doing it or you're you know somehow you know so it's like it feels like he was doing it to get
some of the pats on the back here for doing it which i'm not saying you shouldn't get pats on the back for doing great things like by all means i love being like hell yeah people doing great things totally but like there's a balance yeah this it feels this feels imbalanced exactly it feels like it's imbalanced onto a more taking advantage side of thing than doing good for doing good and it has now even though marjorie hadn't been a very social person to begin with as 1997 dawned there were a few people who found it odd that they They hadn't seen from her or heard her, excuse me, seen her or heard
from her in months.
But when people would ask about her, Bernie would say she was away or she'd been ill and bedridden for weeks.
In December of 1996, he lavishly decorated her estate for Christmas.
But when anybody would ask where she was, he would say she'd gone to her family.
She'd gone to Ohio to visit family.
It's like, but OK, but.
All right. Yeah. So by the spring of 1996, Marjorie's absence had become noticeable to more than just those close to her.
But Bernie continued to explain her absence away by saying actually she'd suffered a stroke and she was in a nursing home outside of town recuperating.
And at that point, Marjorie's cousin Ruth Cockrell had become deeply concerned that something had happened to Marjorie, but she didn't really know what to do about it.
Which I understand.
Yeah. What do you do?
what would you do at that point like can you call the police yeah nothing to really like be sus about and I'm sorry I forgot do you how old is she she was like in her early 80s at this point like I think she's like really elderly yeah and remember she has dementia like that's so so sad Marjorie I know and now finally somebody is like wait a second this is weird but they're not yeah quite sure what to do this cousin of hers Ruth said I was worried something had happened to her but i didn't know who to talk to about it bernie was so beloved in carthage that if i suggested he had done anything wrong
i would have been laughed out of town damn which like that and that shows you how beloved he was by these people which you also have to wonder did you do all of these things maybe in the back of your mind somewhere knowing that you were going to get rid of this woman and you could because you were so beloved and she was not necessarily by the the people in town that's the and it's like when you start thinking about it because now that i know that he's like a murderer uh it's it's like it taints all of this because it's almost like you look at like john wayne gacy everybody loved that guy yeah
and it's like that's that's a tactic absolutely because then when it comes down to brass tacks at the end everybody's going well no like shut up anybody who brings it up would be like shut up not bernie we love him and it's like they all get shut down and it's like that's a tactic it absolutely taking it's almost like a cult leader thing it's like you take control of everybody's minds yeah and then everybody will fight for you when the truth comes out that's why this case is so interesting because you can look at it through so many different lenses yeah and i and i i have like writing it and then
i am right now all over again yeah you really can look at this like 100 different ways because down the road when we do find out what happened you look at it through another lens entirely like maybe he he did just snap.
Damn. It's interesting and tragic.
Yeah. But honestly, Marjorie's cousin was not far off feeling that way.
To the residents of Carthage, Bernie was a beloved man for more than a decade.
He was so sweet to everybody that the idea of him harming anybody literally seemed impossible to people.
And since taking his job with Marjorie, he'd become like the town benefactor, which only increased his reputation.
I was going to say, and that's more power.
So, put simply, even if something had happened to Marjorie, it would have never occurred to anybody that Bernie had something to do with it.
Which is interesting, because again, he's literally one of the only people she has.
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On November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered.
Today, finally, the true story.
Based on over 300 interviews, in their own words, Family members talk about their heartbreak and grief.
Students and townspeople describe that terrifying night.
Police detail the dramatic investigation and arrest of Brian Koberger.
You've never read a true crime like James Patterson and Vicki Ward's The Idaho Four.
The true story, it's finally here.
But finally, in July of 1997, an unidentified person had become so concerned about Marjorie's welfare that they did call the sheriff's department to request a well -being check now maybe it's a testament to the local sentiment about both Marjorie or Bernie or maybe the sheriff's office was just really fucking busy but for some reason that well -being request went unnoticed for nearly a month I'm sorry what a month somebody called that check -in and they didn't get around to it for nearly a month so you call the authorities and say hey haven't heard from my loved one my elderly loved one very worried
about them i'm so worried in fact that i would love you the authorities to go check on her check on her well -being they say totally totally totally absolutely cool cool cool and they hang up the phone and then they don't do it for a month nearly 30 days that's incredible the lawsuit that's incredibly shocking like i'm just i and just like how do you what the how how how and then like after the 30 days what do you You're just like oh I guess we should go check on her That's the thing I don't know if I'm astounded by it I'm literally shocked When somebody from the sheriff's department Finally did
reach out to Bernie in August And this is a small town too It's not like this is a big bustling city That they've got billions of welfare checks The same person that took that wellness call Probably fucking drove past her home On the way home Yes it's like just stop in Do the welfare check nope nope holy shit nobody nope nope but when somebody finally did reach out to bernie in august after getting that wellness check in fucking july receiving the request for it bernie was out of town at a concert in vegas and he said marjorie had actually recently checked into a hospital in temple under an assumed
name and that she didn't want to be bothered so sheriff's deputies were like okay that's a little sus maybe we should have checked on this sooner and they called the the hospital and were informed that nobody matching Marjorie's description had been admitted and nobody had been checked in under an assumed name.
Huh. Uh -huh. Uh -huh.
So for the first time since Bernie arrived in Carthage, some residents of the small town did start to wonder, perhaps Bernie Teed wasn't quite the angel everybody had judged him to be.
Yeah, maybe we should start looking into that.
And now, unable to verify Bernie's story about Marjorie checking into the hospital, deputies ended up calling Marjorie's son Rod in Amarillo.
who came to Carthage with his daughter to help locate his mother.
So Rod and his daughter went to the house and searched for any sign of Marjorie, but came up completely empty -handed.
It was like she just literally vanished into thin air.
But Rod's daughter did mention that she thought it was strange that the large chest freezer in the kitchen pantry had been taped shut.
Which, like, why did it take the granddaughter noticing that and not the deputies?
Oh, man. So the comment prompted sheriff's deputies to take a look inside the freezer.
And when they did, they discovered the body of Marjorie Nugent wrapped in a white sheet buried underneath a pile of frozen food.
Oh, my God. So, so fucked up.
What the fuck? So given the extent to which Bernie had gone to put off questions about Marjorie's whereabouts in the months leading up to the discovery, it was pretty obvious to investigators that at the very least, he knew how she ended up in the freezer yeah so sheriff's deputy spread out across carthage and eventually found bernie getting ready to take the local little league baseball team and their families out to dinner that's where they found him what still doing good deeds just yeah he just out there knowing what's going on knowing that he placed an elderly woman in a freezer but he's out
there in front of everyone being like aren't i great let's aren't i so nice can you fucking imagine if your child was on that little league team and then later on you found out why the sheriffs approached mr bernie teed as you were about to go out to dinner with him with your whole ass child this is outrageous outrageous yeah truly he uh was then once he was located brought into the sheriff's office for questioning now at first he feigned surprise that they would would even want to speak to him at all and he actually started crying when they told him about marjorie's body being discovered in the freezer
and confronted with the truth bernie told the deputies she'd been kidnapped months earlier and he'd been negotiating with the kidnappers by phone ever since shut up panola county sheriff's captain david uh i believe it's jeter said he said he got one phone call from the kidnappers a month and then he said that he got a recent call that informed informed him quote the time is near i can't me we're getting very theatrical now he loves a show tune so unfortunately not being um very skilled in the ways of deceit it was very apparent to bernie that the investigators were not buying his act no but for some
reason he stuck to his story it was only after jeter and his partner returned from searching bernie's home and informed him they found quote -unquote un -christian -like videotapes in their search that he caved and admitted to killing marjorie nugent so this is speculation but to me and to uh probably everybody it sounds like what they found was movies that confirmed people's thoughts about bernie's love interests yes you know hopefully you got the you know which it's like why would that have anything they were in they were intimidating him because they were like oh we found these movies and it's
gonna get out sorry i was not putting that very obvious thing together no that's okay i did that first either like they were saying like we found these and like we're gonna let people know so yeah so you want to tell us something exactly okay that makes sense so So according to Skip Hollinsworth, when investigators asked why he'd done it, quote, Bernie looked at the officers in bewilderment as if the answer were obvious.
At last, he said that Miss Nugent had become, quote, very hateful and very possessive.
And with that, he was charged with murder on August 19th.
I mean, you can't murder people because of that.
You sure can't. You can't murder people.
You can just like leave. Yeah, you could quit.
And just not hang out with her anymore.
But then you wouldn't have access to all her money and be the town's hero.
Damn. And that would really stink.
Damn. So his bond was set at $1 .5 million, while the district attorney reserved comments until they received a full autopsy report.
Now, the news of Marjorie's death came as a big surprise to the small community, but it was nothing compared to the confusion most people felt when they learned who was responsible for her death.
Oh, people must have lost it.
They lost their shit.
Yeah. They didn't believe it, even though he quite literally, like...
He was like, I did it.
He admitted it. Yeah.
Don Lipsey told reporters, We're just shocked.
He was just a pillar of the community.
And another person, Twink Ross, spokeswoman for Panola College, where Bernie had donated generously to the arts programs, she echoed that disbelief saying, a lot of our students are devastated over this.
It's shocking. It's just the most absolute tragedy.
Damn. And the sad thing is, the tragedy I think they were talking about was more about finding out that Bernie murdered someone, not that an elderly lady had been murdered.
Yeah. you know what i mean 100 it was focused on who did it and not what happened was killed right yeah it's like everyone's like wow this is a tragedy and it's like i know right like this poor woman lost her life and they're like and it was bernie and it's like maybe we could just talk about the person who's dead in a freezer i don't know yeah maybe that would be great fucking covered in frozen food oh god you were this woman's friend apparently like allegedly how do you spend all this time with her i'm sorry you have to be there has to be something very very wrong with you if you can leave an elderly
woman's body in a freezer cover her up with frozen food and then just go about your life spending her money no like something is wrong with you something's very wrong like i don't know about that so within days of his arrest it was becoming clear where people in Carthage stood on the matter.
While Marjorie Nugent was commonly described as possessive and a quote -unquote wealthy recluse with a hard tough side to her Bernie was described by friends and neighbors as the kindest most gentle man a very compassionate and caring person.
Y 'all he killed an elderly woman I don't care if she was grumpy or not.
Yeah you can't kill grumpy be old people no all old people would be dead you can't do that and it's like and they've earned the right to be grumpy yeah they lived a fucking life bro yeah when i'm old i'm gonna be grumpy as fuck i'm already grumpy and i'm 37 so it's like i'm gonna be intolerable when i'm old that's fine i'll still take care of you and it's like thank you i appreciate that same i won't spend your money i appreciate that but it's like you're all talking about the good deeds he did with this women's money and without consenting consulting with her first what about the really really
really really bad deed that he did you guys want to talk about that should overshadow the good deeds i yeah you know that's just me though but it wasn't just like the residents in the town it was even investigators that seemed reluctant to investigate the murder yeah and you know to consider bernie a murderer yeah but the more and more they investigated the case the more obvious it it became that this was not a crime of passion.
Two days after his arrest, the Panola County District Attorney added a charge of felony theft and increased Bernie's bond to $2 .75 million once it was determined that he'd been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Marjorie's bank accounts after her death.
Holy shit. District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson told the press, He had the power of attorney to sign checks for her, but that terminated after her death.
death or at her death so it's like what the hell so it's like yeah you're continuing to write these crazy checks yeah and the fact that he did continue to write the checks after marjorie had been killed suggested that he in fact killed her to continue accessing her fortune absolutely and if that were determined to be the case that would elevate the charges to the case to a case of capital murder damn yeah but even the news of the new charges had little effect on how people in town viewed bernie knowing full well that he continued to access this woman's money and forge fucking checks or i i guess
not well yeah it is forged she's dead yeah she's dead at that point after he killed her people are like well wow she was grumpy and we love bernie wow she was grumpy and we loved bernie it's like what the fuck look in the mirror and say that that's the thing like it truly is like she's grumpy that's literally all it is she's unpleasant like she never did anything to hurt anybody it's like she's walking around like to her fucking self beating people with a cane as she goes down the street like jesus like that's even that i'm like you know just like stay in your house yeah but like nobody you can't
kill people that's the thing over this shit no you sure can't and like what the this is layered it's layered and it's It's fucked up.
It is. Reverend E .B.
Beasley of the First United Methodist Church, who got a lot of money from Bernie, told reporters that makes it even more difficult to deal with.
But he was quick to add, it doesn't mean the church has decided to turn its back on Bernie.
The Bernie Teed that's being discussed in the news today is not the Bernie Teed this congregation knew.
He was a very popular member of the church. I'm sure he was.
He was a leader here.
Yeah. You know, until he murdered an elderly woman.
Yeah. And also he was a leader there because he was giving the church the elderly woman's money that he stole directly from her account.
Hold on to that cash.
Hold on to that cash.
Wipe your eyes with that cash, Methodist Church. Jesus, come on.
Come on. Like you got to come out and be like, this is fucked up.
And we'd like to give it back.
And we'd like to just put it back in her account.
Or at least say like, wow, this is wild.
And like, he's terrible.
And we don't condone this.
yes and maybe come out and say that period not like but that's not the bernie that we know yeah because guess what i don't give a shit about the bernie that was before this i care about the bernie that's a murderer and him go to jail now well and guess what it was the bernie that you knew and loved because he was still coming to church spending her money after he killed her yeah after he murdered her oh my god so as locals worked through their confusion and conflict investigator started putting together the pieces of what had led to marjorie's death they were like how did we get here according
to bernie's confession he arrived at marjorie's house a little after 7 a .m on the morning of november 19th 1996 november she was discovered in august i was just gonna say wait a second wait so november december january february march april may june july august nine months she was in that freezer and he's just walking around spending her money almost a year a full pregnancy shit nine months yeah damn and also it's like that fucking welfare check yeah one of those months on another on another level but so on on the morning of november 19th 1996 he prepared her morning coffee and then he went back
home to shower hour before going back to Marjorie's house around 10 a .m. He told deputies, quote, she had become evil and wicked and very possessive over my life.
And according to Bernie, this was actually not the first time he had considered killing Marjorie.
He told them, I thought of hitting Marjorie in the head with a bat or anything for a couple months prior to November 19th, 1996, but I did not want her to suffer.
Oh. I thought of murdering this woman for a while, actually.
Could it, you could You could have just like not hung out with her anymore.
You could have just left your job.
Yeah, you could have just like not been there.
But once he returned to Marjorie's house that morning, he said she almost instantly began ranting at him.
Which remember, she's suffering from dementia.
Then at one point, Bernie noticed the .22 caliber rifle that Marjorie had actually told him to buy to deal with pests.
And he saw it leaning against the wall.
And so he picked it up and started going into the garage to put the gun away.
but marjorie was following closely behind him according to bernie there was nothing in particular that caused him to shoot her on that day he told his sister i started thinking about having to live with her for the rest of her life and i just couldn't take it i realized i couldn't stand it another day so bernie decided he had had enough of her nagging at him and he turned the rifle on her he told sheriff's deputies i took the rifle and shot marjorie in the back she fell face first but was still breathing heavily so i shot her again i may have shot her again i didn't want her to suffer i would like
you to stop saying i would like her i didn't want her to suffer so then why did you shoot her because i would call that suffering murder i would i would call suffering god sir so when he was completely sure that marjorie was indeed dead he dragged her body from the garage to the freezer and once he removed the food he placed her body inside and covered her her with a sheet which he kept telling investigators throughout this conversation that they were having was a land's end sheet like that made it any better he kept saying over and over again that it was a land's end sheet it's like i don't care if you
cover her in a bougie sheet or not you've just murdered her now yeah elderly woman oh my gosh and then put food back in the freezer fully covering her body holy shit once he'd stashed the body bernie returned to the garage and swept up up the bullet casings along with a pile of large leaves which he threw in the trash and then used the garden hose to wash the blood away.
Finally, he sealed the lid of the freezer with two large strips of tape.
And in the weeks that followed, he kept going to work and keeping up appearances at the house to make it seem like she was still alive and active inside to avoid questions from the neighbors oh come on so for nine months he kept going back to the house where he killed her he went through his dia fucking molecule like there's something happening in your brainium cranium that is something's wrong dark sided that is dork side that is sinister vibe that is so we said that in a while it's sinister vibe that's honestly definition of sinister vibe truly so when When the autopsy came back, it confirmed
exactly what Bernie had told the authorities.
Marjorie had been shot in the back four times with a .22 caliber rifle.
That's the other thing.
A rifle. Damn. Horrible.
So, unable to make bond, thankfully, because, you know, he didn't have Marjorie's money anymore, Bernie sat in a cell at the Panola County Detention Center while the Sheriff's Department conducted their investigation.
Now, meanwhile, the IRS had to be called in to aid the case, primarily to perform forensic accounting services to determine just how much money Bernie had stolen from Marjorie and where it had gone.
According to court records, he had stolen over $250 ,000 in about a dozen transactions, most of them in amounts over $10 ,000.
And in addition to that, several other transactions showed that he had cashed almost $400 ,000 in checks drawn from Marjorie's account, the majority of which he distributed to neighbors, charitable organizations, and art programs around the community.
I hate that he's like doing good deeds with this because you're like, fuck, dude, you could have been such a good person.
He stole. You had all the parts there.
Over half a million dollars from this woman.
He had all the parts to be a charitable man.
To be a charitable human.
And like what the fuck happened?
I have no idea. But in one instance, he invested almost $10 ,000 into a play that he was producing.
It was written by local video store clerk Jeremy Jones.
And Jones told reporters, we all assumed he was very wealthy.
I never questioned it.
Yeah, why would you?
That's the thing. Why would you?
Yeah. And on August 27, 1997, a Panola County grand jury indicted Bernie on, quote, charges of murder and theft and the death of Marjorie Nugent.
The indictment noted that he had spent, quote, extensive and extremely substantial amounts of Marjorie's money in the months since her death, which caused the IRS to seize his property and consider additional charges of money laundering.
Wow. I was wondering if they were going to go that route.
uh yeah so while the local and federal officials worked to build a case against bernie many in town rallied around him not long after he was arrested several friends and neighbors actually pooled their own resources to hire a man named clifton quote -unquote scrappy holmes an east texas criminal defense attorney famous for defending wrongfully accused or incarcerated individuals but like honey he confessed correct now luckily not everybody was uh an enthusiastic supporter of bernie district attorney danny buck davidson found the unconditional support for bernie infuriating same he said bernie is a con man and an accomplished
actor he duped a really nice trusting town he's evil which like retweet yeah re -x now davidson had actually known Bernie Teed as long as everyone else in Carthage had.
And up to this point, he always thought that Bernie was a nice man.
Yeah. So he understood why locals could struggle to reconcile the man they knew with the man who murdered Marjorie, which I can understand that being like, holy shit, he duped us all.
Yeah, I can totally understand like having to reconcile that.
And struggling with that.
Like for sure. 100%.
But it's the willingness to look past what he did.
That's the thing. I can't.
Just because they preferred him to Marjorie.
Yeah. He said that was baffling.
And he said, a couple people have said to me that Bernie deserves to fry for what he's done, but I know there are a lot more who want, who just want the whole thing to go away.
They keep asking me if there aren't some extenuating circumstances that would help his defense.
And I think, good God almighty, do people really think Miss Nugent was so mean to him that he had to shoot her in the back in self -defense?
That's the thing. She's an elderly woman.
She's He's an elderly woman.
I don't know how many times I have to say it.
Don't drink every time I say it because, whoa.
Jeez. But like, wow.
So the support for Bernie Teed in and around Carthage was not just inexplicable to law enforcement.
It also proved to be a really big problem when the case made its way to court.
Yeah. Of the 350 prospective individuals considered for the jury, all but 100 were dismissed for various reasons unrelated to the case.
Wow. And when Judge Guy Griffin asked the remaining about 100 prospective jurors whether they could impartially judge Bernie for the murder, less than half said they could.
Wow. Less than half.
Damn. So Judge Griffin said, that was just the first question.
Their attorneys hadn't even begun their questioning.
At that point, we felt we needed to try again somewhere else.
So they had to declare a mistrial.
Wow. And relocate the trial outside of this county.
I'm just like shook by this.
They supported this man so much that no one in town could impartially be on a jury to convict him.
I'm like, I don't even know what to say about this.
I'm like looking at pictures of him because I'm like, do you have a kind face?
What is going on? He does kind of have a kind face.
I will say that. But while the district attorney's office worked to get the trial moved to nearby St. Augustine, which is about an hour from Carthage, Scrappy Holmes there, the defense attorney, was in deep negotiations with the DA to arrange for a plea bargain that would make a trial unnecessary.
But by February of 1999, the negotiation stalled and all Scrappy would tell the press was plea negotiations did not turn out.
So they weren't able to get any kind of plea bargain here.
Yeah. Now, with no plea bargain in sight, Bernie's trial began February 1st, 1999, before the same judge, Judge Guy Griffin, in the 123rd District Court.
Now, despite being just an hour away from Carthage, residents of St. Augustine hadn't been following the story, and only a handful of those interviewed for potential jury duty seemed interested in the case, which, you know, that's good.
Yeah. So that being the case, the jury pool was quickly reduced from 341 individuals to 104, which was just as quickly reduced to the requisite number.
And Danny Buck Davidson, D .A., prepared to give his opening statements on February 3rd. Okay.
Now, the prosecution's case was simple.
Bernie Teed had enticed Marjorie with promises of constant companionship, spent years manipulating her with romantic promises, they said, in order to access her fortune.
And on the first day of testimony, Davidson called several witnesses to the stand to give the jury details of what they claimed was a sham romance so we're taking a twist here pictures yeah it sure seems like he was he was angling some way it sure does robert evans who was a friend of marjorie's because bernie was not the only friend she had robert evans told the jury how while having lunch with marjorie in her home they were interrupted by bernie who greeted marjorie with a kiss and he told the jury he definitely believed this was just one of of the ways in which bernie had manipulated marjorie
oh damn that's fucked up uh yeah and angela rowe an acquaintance of marjorie's offered similar testimony telling the jury about one instance where bernie quote brushed up against mrs nugent with his body in a way i did not think was appropriate oh and she also told the jury about a shopping trip she'd taken with marjorie where marjorie purchased some lingerie and she elaborated it wasn't the kind What kind of lingerie a 75 -year -old woman should wear?
I wouldn't think my grandmother should wear it.
So she was saying like something was going on.
Something strange was happening here.
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Now, the second day of testimony included a number of law enforcement officials and experts who explained the evidence and gave descriptions of how the investigation had come together bernie just sat there sobbing as the prosecution showed the court photos of the crime scene and the freezer where he had stuffed marjorie's body well i mean shut the fuck up you did that yeah why are you crying now you weren't crying for the past nine fucking months are you crying because you're reaping what you sow you were literally walking past that that freezer for the past nine months that's the thing i'm like
your fucking crocodile tears elsewhere fuck you dude you put her in a freezer for nine fucking months like you said walked right by it went out and spending her money and you're sitting there crying at crime scene photos shut up you're crying because you got caught yeah i don't buy this and you're crying because you probably see how fucking terrible that looks now that you're sitting in front of a room full of people who aren't you know accepting your good deeds yeah it feels like it even feels like he can manipulate you through a story of the whole thing because in the beginning You're like,
oh, what's going on?
Bernie seems fine. And then when you get to the end, you're like, fuck you, Bernie.
Yeah. Now, the final photo shown that day, which was the final image the jury saw before being dismissed for the day, was the interior of the freezer.
That image showed, quote, bags of ice, a white tray, and some boxes of food, below which could be seen the small gray oval that was the back of Mrs. Nugent's head.
Oh. Gut -wrenching. My God.
Now, the next day, the jury was again confronted with photo and video evidence, and this time, they actually showed marjorie's body being removed from the freezer wow once it had arrived at the state police lab and the images were so disturbing that the jury sent the judge a note requesting a 15 -minute break to compose themselves wow because remember this is an elderly woman we shot four times we all have grandparents and absolutely or elderly parents like i can't imagine having to see anybody like everybody knows somebody who's elderly yeah you know now bernie's defense defense attorney scrappy
holmes there lodged a formal objection to the video claiming that it was macabre and was shown only to prejudice the jury or shown to show what your client did to this and confess to do yeah yeah but yeah it is macabre you're right uh -huh but ask bernie about it and outside the courtroom he elaborated his objection saying to reporter stephen king couldn't have done it any better i feel like he could have i mean shut the fuck up it's also just like well we're not talking about novels here we're talking about actual crime you sound like a piece of shit talking about a fucking fiction writer in comparison to
like you know like you're like oh Stephen King good to read that but written that any better it's like this is real life so maybe just mother maybe just look at the video and see that that's real and that's what that guy did to her and admitted yeah doing to her and we're not talking about you should take another yeah you should take another avenue here to defend your client because you're not doing a great job maybe just don't say anything but despite having confessed to the murder bernie did plead not guilty so the trial was necessary to determine his responsibility and in his defense scrappy
holmes told the jury bernie was never motivated by money wow never motivated by money he stole over fucking half a million dollars from this woman yeah never motivated by money that's a a bold move to go in that direction he said instead that it was marjorie's quote -unquote possessive demanding nature that had become intolerable and his client simply quote -unquote snapped so what you're saying is that when that becomes too much to handle in your work environment that you should just kill your boss yeah is that what you're saying that's okay you should get away with it because you just snapped
absolutely which like i do wonder if he did just snap i you can And look at it through that lens.
Because he has no priors here.
You're like... This whole thing is very shocking.
It's a shocking act.
I mean, to put Marjorie in a freezer and walk by her for nine months...
Something's got to be wrong.
...and spend her money feels more.
That feels like more than a snap.
It does. You can snap.
Oops. In the moment.
You made a big mistake.
but this is this is a lot more than that it just feels like you there's something you got to have a lot fucked up inside you to be able to do that shit and to be able to walk by that freezer and be able to spend her money and go and tell her home every day and tell her loved ones oh she's that she's fine she's just like she doesn't want to talk to you and like or like she's had a stroke like he yeah at one point he said she had stories and shit like that's really diabolical that he He had that inside of him.
Absolutely. But they said in time, Marjorie became overbearing and demanding of all of Bernie's time, which eventually pushed him to the point of an impulsive action resulting in her death.
And they said if his motive was indeed greed, as the prosecution had alleged, why would he have gone out of his way to give away the vast majority of stolen funds to the community members and civic organizations?
I don't know, because he has he has a hero complex. I think he has a Robin Hood.
complex i think that is what is at the root of all yeah so it's like that's a problem too my friend like that's not that's not good big time so given bernie's confession scrappy holmes objective was more or less damage control in a lesser sentence that was what he was out for so he needed to convince the jury that bernie had acted in a moment of passion and impulsivity and that he actually didn't pose any threat to you know or future danger to the community but unfortunately Fortunately for the defense, the prosecution did a more than adequate job of portraying Bernie as a con artist after one
thing and one thing only.
And in his closing statements, the D .A.
told the jury from this evidence, you can find this defendant was a liar, a liar, coward and back shooter.
So having no other context or familiarity with the defendant, the jury had no trouble believing that this was the case as presented by the prosecution.
And after less than an hour of deliberation, they returned with a guilty verdict.
verdict I mean I would I would he literally confessed at one point now given Bernie's confession the guilty verdict was pretty much expected when it came to the punishment phase however Holmes was hopeful that his client's reputation would go a long way to secure a lighter sentence Davidson the prosecutor on the other hand was pushing for a strict sentence he told reporters I think you've got to look at the crime and the punishment should fit the crime And Marjorie's family was also hopeful for the maximum sentence.
Her granddaughter, Susan, said, we're relieved that there was a guilty verdict.
He deserves 99 years.
I mean, yeah, bye. So the next day, on February 11th, the court reconvened for the sentencing phase where the jury deliberated for less than two hours and returned with a sentence of life in prison.
Wow. Which, I mean, you murdered someone.
Yeah. And stole all their money.
Exactly. And they also gave him a fine of $10 ,000.
Wow. Now, Marjorie's granddaughter, Susan, told reporters this was a horrible, terrible crime and he deserved the worst sentence he got he could get.
And obviously the jury thought so, too.
And Marjorie's son, Rod Jr., was also in town for the trial.
He was actually expected or expecting to be called as a witness, but he wasn't called.
So the sentencing phase was the first time he could speak in the courtroom since the trial started.
And when he finally was able to talk, he said, I'm really here to see justice done and for closure.
This crime, to me, is about finding old people who are vulnerable and stealing from them.
Yeah. It's like 100%.
Absolutely. Now, after he was convicted and sentenced and the whole nine, defense attorney Clifton Holmes immediately fired papers requesting the judge declare a mistrial, which was rejected.
Yeah. But followed by the usual round of appeals, you know, how it always goes.
Now, among the issues cited for the appeal was the claim that the judge refused to allow the defense's psychiatric expert to testify, which they alleged could have confirmed Bernie's, quote, unquote, lack of future dangerousness and provided important evidence as to, quote, unquote, his mental condition during and after the offense.
so they were saying you didn't let our psychiatrist come in and talk about his condition which would have showed that he wasn't dangerous and this is what he was dealing with at the time of the murder and it's like okay it's valid yeah to an extent for sure but it's like but but he put her in a freezer and walked around and just lived his life and spent her money that's the thing so i don't know if that would have helped you i don't think quite honest i think they would have been like yeah this is fucked up agreed dr frederick mears explained that in his opinion at the time of the murder bernie
was under considerably more stress than normal and quote might have had some disassociative event that made him temporarily psychologically degraded now in addition to that when they asked whether bony bernie would pose a future threat to the community the doctor stated it is my opinion he absolutely would not pose a threat or danger to inmates cellmates guards anyone in that system uh -huh so initially the court of appeals ruled that the lower court actually had erred in their refusal to admit dr mears testimony into evidence but when it was sent back for reconsideration the appeals court did
determine that the error was quote -unquote harmless and ultimately upheld the sentence because it's like are we really trying to say that like he was really stressed out more stressed out than normal so he murdered someone pretty much because like i right now in this moment i am very stressed out i am i have a lot of stress in my life i don't expect to get away with murdering someone because of it here i that one's not no that i'm glad that one didn't hold up and they weren't like well he was stressed out because it's like i don't know about that now usually that would be where the story would end
in a typical case. They said, like, fuck you to the appeal, and then you sit in prison the rest of your life.
Yeah. But as we know, Bernie Teet's case is far from typical.
No. And there were going to be some more twists and turns before it, you know, faded from the spotlight.
About a decade after Bernie entered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the story of Marjorie Nugent's murder at the hands of the town's beloved former mortician made its way to the desk of screenwriter Richard Linklater later.
Now, Richard had read Skip Hollinsworth's, who I've quoted here, his 1998 article about the murder midnight in the garden of east texas it was published in texas monthly i definitely recommend reading it but he approached hollandsworth about collaborating on a screenplay about the case now the film you might remember it it wasn't too long ago it was titled simply bernie was released in 2012 do you remember seeing the commercials for that oh my god yeah i haven't watched it still i haven't either but it was it was a pretty big movie And overall, it was well -received by critics.
It was Jack Black? Yeah, I think you're right, actually.
I hope I'm not remembering that wrong, but I feel like that just popped into my head.
Double -check that for me, but I want to say you're right.
Yeah, I think it's Jack Black as Bernie.
I feel like you're right, yeah.
So the critics, they liked the movie.
But in Carthage, Linklater's Hollywood adaptation of Marjorie's murder was not as well -received.
One resident said of the film, if it was fiction, it might be funny, but this was a real person in a real town, and no, I don't think it's funny at all.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Like, it is Jack Black, and the way it's played off on here, from what I'm seeing, is, like, this looks like a comedy.
Yikes. Like, I didn't see it, so I won't say it is, but, like, the way they're advertising it is a little comical.
Really? Don't love that.
Very off -putting when you know the actual story.
Yeah. So, and district attorney Danny Buck Davidson Stevenson agreed, telling local news station KLTV, he put Miss Nugent in a freezer and then went and preached in churches.
Yeah. If it was a dark comedy, you can't make a dark comedy out of a murder.
You want to make a fiction story out of like, you know, dark comedies happen all the time.
Fiction. Yeah. Like you made it up.
Right. It didn't actually, in fact, on Google, when you type in Bernie the movie and like this movie comes up.
Yeah. Google says why to watch delightful, Delightful, dark, and hilarious.
Dude. Yeah. Like, delightful, dark, hilarious.
That's upsetting. That's wild.
Yeah. That's on another level.
Damn. That just shook me.
Yeah. Well, despite local criticisms of the film, some people close to the case actually felt like it was an accurate portrayal.
Marjorie's nephew, Joe Rhoades, said, There are little things in Bernie that aren't exactly true.
Bits of dialogue and name change here and there.
But the big things, the weirdest things, happened exactly as the movie says they did.
Wow. Now, more than 10 years after the murder occurred, the residents of Carthage actually reconsidered their stance on Bernie Teed after that movie, which is interesting that this fucking Jack Black movie made these people change their opinions.
Diane Davidson said, The community has completely turned 180 degrees.
They want him to service time.
Wow. wild but while locals had turned on the man they once rushed to defend austin -based attorney jody cole reached out to link later to find out more about the story she saw the film and told him it quote raised some issues i wonder about huh now like many people who had seen the movie or simply heard about the case to her something just didn't add up like why marjorie's closest friend would turn on her so quickly without acute provocation and how one of the area's most beloved residents could be so easily convicted and receive the harshest penalty.
Yeah. Which if you're looking at it from an outside scope, I mean, I've said it this whole time, this case is wild.
Yeah. I understand having questions.
Yeah. So Attorney Cole there ended up speaking with Bernie after reaching out about the film's making and watching it and just having questions upon questions.
Yeah. So she ended up talking to Bernie multiple times and eventually filed a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf arguing that the jury had been prevented from accessing critical testimony that would have likely influenced their understanding of the crime and their attitudes during the penalty phase after several interviews with the clinical psychologist cole actually learned and this is a trigger warning for sexual trauma cole actually learned that bernie had experienced considerable sexual and psychological abuse as a child oh which significantly influenced his cognitive cognitive ability at the time
of the murder according to bernie marjorie quote often demanded and ridiculed him and became critical and accusatory toward a male gardener with whom mr teed had a clandestine sexual relationship oh so the effect they said was essentially what one would experience in an abusive domestic relationship which ultimately led to marjorie's murder wow now a second psychological evaluation conducted by dr Dr. Edward Gripen, actually produced similar findings.
In his report, the doctor wrote, After years spent repressing the effects of childhood abuse and hiding his homosexuality in a community he worried would not accept him, Mr. Teed learned to compartmentalize his emotions, allowing him to act normally for months after the murder.
So that can explain that.
Now, given the extent to which Bernie's attitude and behavior after Marjorie's death factored into his sentencing, cole succeeded in winning bernie a new sentencing hearing and he was released from prison on in may of 2014 and actually took up residence in link leaders garage in la while he awaited a new hearing what crazy twist of events now in addition to the new psychological reports cole also indicated bernie's confession had more or less been coerced arguing that law Law enforcement officials threatened to release scandalous information to the public if he didn't tell the truth, which is what we
touched on earlier with those movies that they found.
Now, the allegations of both new evidence and a potentially coerced confession didn't sit well with DA Danny Buck Davidson.
I actually really like this guy.
He told reporters a new hearing felt like the right thing to do considering the circumstances.
Wow. He said prosecutors are good guys and we're supposed to do what's right.
So he wanted to stand by doing what was right.
That's pretty badass.
Now, another granddaughter of Marjorie, Shanna Nugent, disagreed and told the host of the Today Show, it just doesn't feel like this is right.
It doesn't feel like justice.
I get that. And I totally get that.
Her grandmother was brutally murdered.
Yeah. So Bernie's new hearing finally came in April 2016 and a new jury learned of his history of abuse and how it affected his actions at the time of the murder and in the months that followed. Defense attorney Mike DeGuerin told the jury that Bernie, quote, killed Nugent because her abuse triggered the trauma he had faced when he was younger.
But it's still not okay to kill someone.
Exactly. They were trying to say, like, psychologically something happened that wouldn't happen again.
For sure. Now, the attorney also alleged that contrary to what the previous jury had heard about Bernie manipulating and isolating Marjorie in the months before her death, it was in fact Marjorie who, quote, alienated most of her relatives and who had a reputation of being unlikable, which is like.
Oh, we're going back to this again.
Exactly. thank you okay cool so the new jury deliberated for a little over four hours before returning with a sentence of 99 years or life in prison wow which weirdly feels like a nod to what her granddaughter said before that he deserved 99 years it really does did y 'all get together and help that girl out which like he deserves it he didn't kill her no matter what it's true so with the new sentence on the record bernie was returned to the texas department of criminal justice to continue serving his sentence and he remains there to this day damn what a wild fucking story that is a roller coaster
it is and poor marjorie that's the thing to to get the reputation that she not only gone in life but in in death is just really sad like yeah i know it doesn't sound to me like most people took the time to try and understand her well no one deserves that and And regardless of her attitude, regardless of what it was or wasn't, exactly, nobody deserves that.
Yeah, that's fucked up.
It's really sad. Like, I understand movies being made about, you know, big cases and all that.
Like, that's going to happen.
That does happen. That's happened forever.
To make a case like this, a dark, delightful, hilarious movie is like, whoa.
And I never saw it.
nor no neither have i and i genuinely like everybody who's in that movie i'm like i like those i'm like this it's like shocking i'm like this is strange it was an interesting to see it was an interesting decision because it's jack black shirley mclean and matthew mcconaughey matthew mcconaughey like all three of them were like the like shirley mclean plays marjorie wow wow and it's like did nobody think we looked into this like what it's just a strange move it's yeah but again I haven't seen the movie so maybe it's being described wrong maybe I'm gonna say I know anything about it because I don't
I don't really have any interest in but very strange watching it just I don't either after hearing this story I don't want to I don't want to watch it at all but damn wild oh that is the tragic case of the murder of Marjorie Nugent and Marjorie it's the small town that really paraded around a man that yeah Yeah.
Murdered someone. He really manipulated everybody.
Truly. And he really placed himself in a position of looking like a hero.
Yup. And with that, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. But it's weird that you manipulated an entire town into thinking that you're some kind of hometown hero and realistically you're walking past a freezer where you are holding the body of an elderly woman that you murdered nine months ago.
Don't keep it that weird, you piece of shit.
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